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MVP Baseball Online, Back w/ a Vengeance!

TribeFan4Eva

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TribeFan4Eva All-Star

TribeFan4Eva

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Since I've been a member of this site, and a fan of MVP Baseball, there has always been one constant that I love: Online/Head-to-Head Play. Nothing beats playing a real human opponent rather than the computer over and over. I like dynasties and all, but I find myself restarting them more than I actually play them.

When I had this game for PS2, I was an online junkie! All I did was play online. Nothing was better than signing on at any point of the day and going heads up with someone else. It was fun, entertaining, competitive, and it never got old!

Nothing beats trying to guess if your opponent is going to throw you a slider away, or a fastball inside. And nothing beats the feeling when you guess right, and come up with a big hit! Test your skills against the best of MVPMods!

Ever since EA took the servers down, this game just hasn't been the same for me. If you've followed multiplayer topics on this site, then it's easy to see I get very excited when the prospect of playing online is brought up.

I know there are probably HUNDREDS of you who feel the same way. While Buffa and the guys put great effort into the latest project for online play, it wasn't what many people expected. I commend him and everyone else who chipped in, but I'm determined to make online play a frequent occurence on MVPMods!

Obviously we will never have the servers back like EA, but we can come close! There are ways to make this work, and I'm going to be the person who puts enough effort into this to make it happen. But, I can't do it alone, I need YOUR help!

Let me go through my steps to making online play work here at MVPMods:

1.) Hamachi is the closest thing we will have to the EA Servers. Many of us have used it, and if you have, you know why it's so easy and useful. In order to be able to play, download and install Hamachi at:

http://www.hamachi.cc/download/list.php.

Download the one for windows and install it.

2.) Once you install it, click on the button that says "Create or join networks." When it asks you for the Network name type "MVP Baseball Online." Below that, in the password field, type "MVP." This is case sensitive so type it exactly like it is in quotes.

This is actually the hardest part of getting this whole online process to work, AND IT'S NOT HARD AT ALL! Once you follow those simple steps you will be setup in the MVP Baseball Online network along with everyone else that takes the same steps and joins the network.

The IP number at the top of the lobby is your IP number generated through Hamachi. When people are logged in you will see a green light indicating that they are signed on. You can click on their name to chat and setup a game.

3.) Once you set the game up, just decide who's the home team and who is away.

Finding an opponent:

In the MVP Baseball Online network you joined you can see IP's and nicknames. The ones that are gray are offline, the highlighted ones are online. Right click on one of the highlighted nicknames, choose "chat" from the menu, or just double click it, and find out if the guy behind the nickname wants to play.

Before a game:

In MVP, go to "Network games", then choose "host direct IP" for a home game or "Join direct IP" for an away game (you have just agreed with your opponent who gets home field). For a home game just hit "connect", for an away game type your opponent's Hamachi IP in the appropriate box, return to your Hamachi chat and connect roughly at the same time as your opponent. Just say something like "Connect in 10 seconds."

THAT'S IT!!! Then you're connected and ready to play!

4.) Before loading up, there is one thing that MUST be compatible, the DATAFILE. If you want to play with a datafile, just make sure you and your opponent are using the exact same datafile. The game will go out of sync if you do not. The easiest thing to do is just take your datafile out and put it back in later if you want. It's located in the MVP Baseball 2005/Data folder.

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We as a community MUST make this work. It is vital to keeping this game fresh and innovative. All these beautiful mods need to be used in many ways, whether dynasty or online play.

I think this will work for different reasons.

For one, this ISN'T a league. This is better. Whenever you want a game, just sign on, see who else is on and wants to play, and get to it! No stats to track, scores to submit, rules to abide by. Come up with your own rules if you want, play the game, then sign off, or play another!

My League of Elite failed miserably because people never came through on their games. There were those who did, but most didn't, and to make matters worse almost no one saved their box scores or stats and I felt like I was putting too much time into something nobody else cared about.

I feel as though Leagues are destined to fail from the start because the owners always have high expectations that wear off when they realize everything isn't going as planned. And the members seem to disappear sometimes or drop for no reason.

But with a network like Hamachi, people can just sign online whenever they feel like a game, just like EA Sports online, and hopefully there will be a bunch of people also online looking for a game. I encourage everyone to sign up for this, and I encourage everyone to get online at random times when you want a game and play!

Nothing would be more exciting than signing online on a lazy Saturday night and seeing like 25-30 people in a lobby playing head-to-head.

Even if you think you'll only play head-2-head like once a month, still sign up so that a the amount of members will increase.

So please, lets get head-2-head competition back on the level it should be!!!

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While I used to be a big fan of Ladders, I think this will be better. Like with leagues, in Ladders you have to take the time to schedule games, get on at the same time, work your schedule out, etc.

But with Hamachi, you just sign on any time you want and see if anyone is on to play! No emailing back and forth or setting times, just sign on at your leisure and play!

I AM PLEADING WITH EVERYONE WHO IS READING THIS TO MAKE IT WORK! IF EVERYONE TAKES THE TIME TO SIGN UP FOR THIS, AND SIGN ONLINE WHENEVER YOU WANT A GAME, I GURANTEE THERE WILL BE A BUNCH OF OTHER PEOPLE ON TO PLAY AGAINST ALL THE TIME!!!

We all live in different areas and different time zones, so there should always be people on. This could be a revolution that changes this site so much and adds a dimension to it none of us ever thought possible. And it's so easy too.

IT WILL TAKE YOU NO MORE THAN 3 MINUTES OR SO TO DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM AND BE IN THE LOBBY WITH EVERYONE ELSE!!! IT'S THAT EASY!!!

Think you can't sign up because you have a firewall or a router? WRONG! Hamachi lets you play through firewalls and gives you a IP address to bypass the router!

I am going to do everything in my power to make this work. If anyone has problems or questions getting setup, email me, PM me, reply in this thread, or do whatever it takes to solve the problem so we can get this thing going! I am going to head this thing up and not allow it to die like a lot of other threads concerning this have.

-I do ask that you be courteous when playing. Like agree on your settings, strike zone on/off, etc. Also agree on the amount of "sim" style to be played.

Just like back in the EA server days when people would text you "wanna play a strikes game." Meaning you throw pretty much everything around the plate and try and locate. This will bring back great memories and revive the fun of online play.

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Admins/Mods

You are very vital in making this work. I think making a permanent fixture of this thread or something similar to it on the Main Page of the site would go wavelengths in the progress of this. Whenever people visited the site, they would see like a link on the Main Page saying: "Wanna play MVP Online? Find out how here!" This way we could continually generate new members signing up and hopefully one day we will have so many people signed up that we have to make a "MVP Baseball Online 2" lobby.

I know you guys are real careful about stickying stuff. If all you can do is sticky this in the multiplayer forum, I understand. But I think making some sort of link or statement about it on the Main page (i.e. Total Classics) would show that this site really supports, and is dedicated to making online play work!

No gimmicks, no leagues, no long sign-up process, no scheduling opponents, no forums, JUST SIGN UP AND PLAY BABY!

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Pokeys Major Leaguer

Pokeys

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Nice post... Im online right now. Hopefully more people buy into this. I love playing people online but i've only played once and the game sucked cause the pitching and hitting was lagging. Neither of our connections sucked...

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TribeFan4Eva All-Star

TribeFan4Eva

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I must say I was VERY excited and pleasantly surprised when I got on Hamachi this morning and saw that 7 people were now signed up in the Online lobby!!

Keep it up guys. If 7 people join a day, this lobby will be huge in a few weeks!

I hate to bother the Mods again, but is there anyway to get this as a Main Page Sticky. I just know people pay a ton of attention to that stuff. It's one of the first things they would see and could lead to the success of this.

And it would only need to be on the Main Page for a few days, because by then all the regulars would see it and all the new guys could then find it in the multiplayer forum if it were also stickied there.

I hope you understand I'm not just trying to get my post on the main page, I'm just trying to make online play a fixture at MVPMods.

We are headed in the right direction after day 1. Thanks for your participation and I look forward to playing against those of you online who have already signed up!

Since we are still gathering members, if you sign on and don't see anyone else currently signed on, you could even make a post on MVPMods like "I'm on Hamachi, someone get on and play me" or "I'm in the MVP Baseball Online lobby, game anyone?"

Thanks again!

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wierdijk Draft Pick

wierdijk

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A lot of what you say and feel about playing MVP online echoes my sentiments and that of many around the globe, or so I would assume. I really hope this will help to lay new foundations for an online community, but there's one small but vital point that is of direct influence to expanding the baseball community to any significant proportion.

That point lies in the limitation of network capacity on Hamachi. The free download lets you create or join any network you like, but each network is limited to a maximum of 16 members. You can of course start another network, but that one will also be full at 16. So instead of creating a community of maybe hundreds of players, a lot of separate 16 player groups will be formed, of whom only a small number will be online at the same time.

Now there's also Hamachi Premium. This paid service allows for networks up to 256 members, and that's a little more like it, huh. The only downside is that every member needs to get a premium account, and although prices are not unreasonable (about $ 40.00 a year), that will probably limit the number of people interested.

Buffa and myself have tried to develop similar initiatives using Hamachi networks, but once a couple of networks filled up things had a tendency to peter out, simply because there was no real community forming due to the above described situation.

This is the main reason Buffa started thinking about and working on a place where there would be no limitations in capacity and a utility to easily identify the IPs of other players. If players have Hamachi active while logging on, their Hamachi IP also shows in a box called "Private IP". Players can use their Hamachi IPs without having to be in a Hamachi network.

Interested folks may have figured that this game launcher would be a full-fledged and ready to go replacement of the EA servers, but reality dictates there are no longer any MVP dedicated game servers. So although the game launcher utility is already halfway to oblivion, it provides the exact ingredients needed to have a shot at creating a true community of online players.

Unfortunately, reactions like this one:

So basically, all this is is a chatroom that tells you the other people's IP address? Besides that, I am not a fan of the fact this program lets you see the processes that everyone else has open. I'll stick to AIM chat and the competitions ladder, because honestly there's no benefit to this that I can see.

indicate that few realize that a common ground dedicated exclusively to MVP Baseball is exactly the benefit required for establihing an online community.

Having said all that I will root for your "player draft" on this forum to succeed in some shape or form. Good Luck!

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jhoff80 Rookie

jhoff80

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I'm all for a common ground for MVP Baseball, in fact I suggested that there was a dedicated chat room for matchmaking purposes. The problem with that program is that someone took all that time (it was a few months if I recall correctly), which honestly, was a complete waste, told everyone that it would be an EA server replacement, and then what he released could have been more simply done by just having people join the MVPmods chatroom that already exists, without all that work of developing.

When I suggested the chatroom, quite a few people mentioned that it is much easier to just use AIM for these purposes. I'm not a big fan of that, as you can't tell whether someone is specifically interested in a game or not, or just online to chat to friends, but at least AIM is something that people already have installed and almost constantly have running. The program that I commented about, I tried it out quite a few times, and never saw a single person in the room. Nobody uses the chatroom that ALREADY exists as a java applet on the site either.

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Buffa Major Leaguer

Buffa

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Let's start asking to Carter or Trues to organize a tournament on mvpmods competition: 16 teams or more if people come from Europe too. East coast USA and Europe could play decent or good online matches, if there are players coming from west coast or central USA they could play with other USA or Canada guys

Then let's set a meeting point on the MVP launcher, open hamachi and play

It could be a first step to make interested players meeting each other...only an idea...

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Trues Legend

Trues

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Let's start asking to Carter or Trues to organize a tournament on mvpmods competition: 16 teams or more if people come from Europe too. East coast USA and Europe could play decent or good online matches, if there are players coming from west coast or central USA they could play with other USA or Canada guys

Then let's set a meeting point on the MVP launcher, open hamachi and play

It could be a first step to make interested players meeting each other...only an idea...

Sounds like a plan. I'll talk with carter.

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TribeFan4Eva All-Star

TribeFan4Eva

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the thing with a tourney though, once is over, its over.

If everyone signs up for Hamachi, and signs on sparingly to play, it will never end.

the tournament would be fun, but we need people to constantly get online and play.

I want online play to last forever! That's my goal.

sign on up, we have double digit members now and may be on the verge of creating more rooms!

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wierdijk Draft Pick

wierdijk

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In my opinion, the key to succeeding is knowing where to find the other players.

Let's look at some stats in this respect:

MVPMods Competitions, a beautiful piece of work by the way, currently has 98 members, 75 of whom have joined the only current ladder. Of these 75 guys, 11 have played, for a total of 44 games played in 4 weeks time.

We have a modest league with 16 members, 9 of whom have been active in week 1 for a total of 25 games played. At this pace, this small community would reach double the number of games compared to the now 6 times larger MVPMods Competitions community.

Main reason: The league players know where to find their opponents, and have established some basic lines of communication.

Proposal: Motivate as many people as possible to go to the same place if they want to play an online game. The MVPMods chatroom or Buffa's game launcher would be much better suited to this purpose then AIM, MSN, etc., simply because they serve only one purpose.

Let's agree on where our playground will be and I'll go ahead and ask any online player I know to go there to play.

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carter Legend

carter

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MVPMods Competitions, a beautiful piece of work by the way, currently has 98 members, 75 of whom have joined the only current ladder. Of these 75 guys, 11 have played, for a total of 44 games played in 4 weeks time.

This has been something that has baffled me since the beginning -- why sign up if you're not going to play? Sure people have lives outside of MVP Baseball and that's cool, but you would think that if you sign up to play that over a one month period you would be able to find the time to play at least one game.

We have a modest league with 16 members, 9 of whom have been active in week 1 for a total of 25 games played. At this pace, this small community would reach double the number of games compared to the now 6 times larger MVPMods Competitions community.

Main reason: The league players know where to find their opponents, and have established some basic lines of communication.

Congratulations -- that is a great achievement. I think this is something that we could potentially use to boost play on MVPmods Competitions at some point in time. It's really up to the members. Having another line of communication could boost gameplay.

Proposal: Motivate as many people as possible to go to the same place if they want to play an online game. The MVPMods chatroom or Buffa's game launcher would be much better suited to this purpose then AIM, MSN, etc., simply because they serve only one purpose.

I personally like using AIM for a couple of reasons. To begin, I already have it installed -- so I don't need to download and install another program. I personally have concerns about the security of some of the programs mentioned in this thread. Also, over the past couple of years I have gained a pretty big list of MVP players. Whenever I want to play a game I can usually find someone on AIM to play. Now I know some have expressed a reservation because if you sign on to AIM with no intention of playing MVP you may get bombarded with messages asking you to play. My response to that is to create another AIM account that you would use specifically for MVP play. If it would help, we could always post a list of everyone's AIM names on the MVP Competitions so that you could always have an updated list of people interested in playing MVP online.

I do agree that a central location for communication is needed in order for MVP online play to be successful. It's all up to the player at this point in time. There are several options available -- MVPmods Chatroom, AIM, or Himachi. Maybe a vote is needed. What do you think?

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